'Less Sugar' Lemon and Blueberry Vegan Cupcakes!

So, you probably saw on my Facebook that I've been doing some springtime baking - and don't worry - it's still vegan. I'm not a vegan but the people who eat my cakes and biscuits are. This one is a lemon and blueberry cupcake with a rosemary and vegan cream cheese buttercream. I've dyed the buttercream a lavender purple but you can use any colour you please. And remember, these are 'less sugar' as well, so we opt for healthier sugary options at times and we see how far we can reduce the sugar without changing the texture, using other things to sweeten our cake.

'Less Sugar' Lemon and Blueberry Vegan Cupcakes!

Part 1: The Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 75g brown sugar
• 110g vegan margarine
• 2x tbsp baking soda
• 2x tsp vinegar
• 12x blueberries
• 1x large lemon
• 110g self raising flour
• 1x tsp baking powder

How To:

1. Line a cupcake tray with 12 cases and preheat your oven to 200/C
2. Cream together the margarine and sugar
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the baking soda and the vinegar (it should go a bit bubbly!)
4. In yet another bowl, grate the outside of a lemon in order to 'zest' it
5. Put your baking soda and vinegar mix into your now creamed margarine and sugar mix and whisk it up for about 3 minutes (you should wait until everything is completely combined and no baking soda clumps should be visible at all. It needs to be super-duper smooth)
6. In a separate bowl mix together your self-raising flour and baking powder and add your lemon zest
7. Put this flour mixture into the main bowl of margarine, sugar and your baking soda mixture and again, mix it up to create a smooth batter
8. Grab a spoon and spoon your mix into 12 cupcake cases, filling them each about halfway
9. Put a blueberry into each cupcake case, dotting it in the middle and gently pushing it into the mix with your finger
10. Spoon another 1/2 teaspoon of the remaining cupcake mix atop of the blueberries
11. Put them in the oven for 15-20 minutes
12. When they come out, wait for five minutes before removing them from the cupcake tray. Then take them out, put them on a plate and put the plate in the fridge

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Now on to the buttercream and I know this contains quite a bit of sugar but we have reduced the amount of sugar in the cake by bringing it down by about 35g and adding a blueberry for the sweetness instead. So forgive yourself if you want a bit of sugar in this part. Of course, it is optional to add buttercream and I normally don't plaster the entire cake with it as it gives the consumer the option of taking it off the cake and discarding it with a spoon easily. But again, we will be reducing the sugar so that we can sweeten it to taste with something a bit more flavoursome.

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Part 2: Purple Rosemary Vegan Cream Cheese Buttercream

Ingredients:

• 150g vegan margarine
• 30g vegan cream cheese
• 230g powdered sugar
• 1x tbsp vanilla
• 20g chopped rosemary
• 1x tsp gel food colouring of your choice (I used lavender)

How To:

1. Spend about 5 minutes whisking up the margarine and cream cheese until they are whipped and whitened
2. Add the sugar and vanilla and whisk that up for another 5 minutes
3. Add the rosemary and the food colouring and whisk that up for a further 3 minutes until everything is combined
4. This is now ready to put in a piping bag and, atop of that, your cakes should be cooled by now so you can start decorating
5. Finish with a sprinkle of rosemary

Tip: I used fresh rosemary (there's a plant in my garden) - but I would suggest buying the packet stuff and not the jar if you want the best flavour from the least amount

Tip 2: Adding the cream cheese means we were allowed to reduce the sugar a bit because cream cheese is naturally quite sweet - the buttercream still works and produces the same result, but now it has a sweetness that comes from the food

Tip 3: The vanilla also allows us the reduce the sugar a bit - again, this is for sweetness and flavour. You only need sugar to produce the texture of buttercream. See how low you can get it before the texture changes!

Enjoy your cupcakes!